informal alliterative poems. Formal poems have an
alliterative pattern of aa, ax, meaning that each line of
verse contains four stresses, the fi rst three of which are
alliterated, as in this opening line from The Wars of
Alexander, where the initial “b” sound is repeated “this
barne quen he borne was, as me the boke tellis” (l. 1).
Formal alliterative poetry tends to have a more elevated
style, as seen in alliterative ROMANCEs such as SIR GAWAIN
AND THE GREEN KNIGHT and the Morte Arthure. Poems in
this group also include the alliterative ST. ERKENWALD,
CLEANNESS, Patience, The Destruction of Troy, The Siege of
Jerusaleum, Winner and Waster, The Parliament of the
Three Ages, and William of Palerne. Informal alliterative
poetry has a much less regularized rhyme and meter
scheme and more variation it its alliteration. Many of
these texts were written in the south midlands of Eng-
land and examine contemporary religious and social
life. Poems in this group include Piers Plowman and
texts inspired by Piers Plowman, such as MUM AND THE
SOTHSEGGER and PIERCE THE PLOUGHMAN’S CREDE.
Little is known about how these texts were pro-
duced and who produced them. Most are preserved in
only one copy, with the exception of The Siege of Jeru-
salem and Piers Plowman. In addition, the majority of
these manuscripts date not from the time of their com-
position in the 14th century, but rather from the 15th
and in some cases the 16th and 17th centuries. Even
less is known about the audience of these poems,
although most scholars today believe the lesser clergy
and nobility were the intended audiences.
Given these diffi culties, why speak of an “alliterative
revival” at all? The term developed in part in an effort
to explain a mystery. The BRUT, which was composed at
the end of the 12th century, is the last alliterative, non-
rhyming poem written before the alliterative revival
began in the mid-14th century. Thus, there seems to
have been a 100-year period, from approximately 1250
to 1350, when no alliterative poetry was written, fol-
lowed by a fl urry of activity for about 50 years, at
which time the form again waned (although it remained
popular in Scotland for much of the 15th century).
As noted above, the term revival suggests that Mid-
dle English alliterative poetry hearkens to Anglo-Saxon
verse forms. Not only is alliteration characteristic of
Anglo-Saxon poetry, but the poems of the alliterative
revival often use Old English or Old Norse words,
which rarely appear in nonalliterative Middle English
poetry. Therefore, at fi rst glance these poems seem to
be quite self-consciously modeling themselves on their
Anglo-Saxon predecessors. Although there is compara-
tively little written Anglo-Saxon poetry extant, some
scholars have argued that these older forms were pre-
served through oral tradition, citing as evidence the
scenes of public storytelling in noble households that
sometimes appear in these poems. One explanation
offered for the revival of alliterative verse is that in the
mid-14th century the infl uence of ANGLO-NORMAN was
waning and poets were looking for a literary language to
replace it. Others have suggested that the poets of this
period turned to alliterative verse in an effort to develop
a poetic style that was distinctly English in order to
break away from French, which had shaped literature
and culture since the NORMAN CONQUEST in 1066.
However, there are a number of diffi culties with this
thesis. While late medieval, alliterative poetry shares
similarities with its Anglo-Saxon counterpart, it has a
different meter and style. In addition, while Old Eng-
lish, Old Norse, and even Scandinavian words appear
in 14th-century alliterative poetry, there are also a
number of new, contemporary words used in the
poems, many of which relate to clothing, hunting,
siege warfare, and armor. Nor do we have evidence
that Anglo-Saxon alliterative verse was preserved in
oral culture. Even if it was, there are two aspects of
Middle English alliterative poetry that make it unlikely
that it was inspired by an oral tradition. First, the
poems tend to be very bookish, often citing textual
sources for their stories. This device could certainly be
a convention (just as a scene of public recitation could
be a convention, rather than refl ective of actual prac-
tice), but many of these texts are translations of French
or Latin sources. Second, some of the poems are very
long. Ten alliterative poems are 1,000–7,000 lines, and
The Destruction of Troy a daunting 14,000 lines. These
lengths do not invite memorization and oral recitation.
Others have suggested that alliterative verse was passed
down to 14th-century writers not through oral tradi-
tion but, rather, through texts that are now lost to us.
According to this theory, there is continuity in the
composition of alliterative verse, rather than disrup-10 ALLITERATIVE REVIVAL